Sunday 22 July 2007

Harry Potter - Don't worry, no spoilers here!

After little sleep and much anti-social behaviour, I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows yesterday lunchtime. Now, I don't want to spoil the book for those of you who haven't read it, or bore those of you who don't care and want to put nails through your eyelids at the very mention of "Harry Potter". So, I'm going to review it in "comments". Also, I am going to write the review on the assumption that you have read it, so there will be spoilers galore. You have been warned!

5 comments:

MM said...

I loved this book. I think that J.K. Rowling is a genius, and the book was even better than I had hoped. The book made me cry like a giant sook, and I haven't done that in ages. I loved the way it all wrapped up, and my favourite parts were Kreacher becoming endearing, Percy coming to help fight, Dobby saving the day, Neville killing the snake, and what we found out about Snape which wasn't a surprise but great to read. I have also been saying for two years that Harry was a horcrux so feel quite smug about that. My only criticism really was about the body of the book - I realised about halfway through that it felt a lot like the Da Vinci Code and that genre of writing when they were finding out about the Deathly Hallows, and I wonder if that was intentional or not.

One thing though - I've noticed some discussion on other blogs about the epilogue and how heaps of ppl hated it. I loved it, as it told me where the characters ended up without a sequel. What did you think?

Maria said...

Those were my favourite bits as well :)

My problem with the epilogue was not the contents of it, but rather the way it was written. It seemed beneath her writing capabilities somehow. I liked knowing how the trio ended up, but would have loved to know more about other characters and Hogwarts as well.

Ah well, there's always fanfic :D

Tane said...

I really enjoyed it too, I'd make it my third favourite of the series (after Azkaban and Goblet). Loved the climactic battle at Hogwarts and the grim atmosphere of most of the book. The bad guys were in charge, and Rowling made you feel the fear and desperation of the heroes.

I'm a fan of the epilogue as well, as I thought it drew a line under the series and removed any possibility of more Harry-focused sequels. Though I think there's plenty of possibilities for other books set in the Potter world.

My only criticism would be that there were too many 'magic spell x means magic object y can't do something unless magic spell z' happened. It all got a bit much.

Unknown said...

Yes - I've seen a lot of complaints about the epilogue. I was fine with it, it felt like enough just to know they had happy lives and kids and so on. (I devoured the book in one sitting - Libby was waiting to read it after me :-) ).

I saw an article saying a lot of people were flicking to the last few pages to find out what happened. I certainly didn't - we hurried out of the shop before someone could yell spoilers out.

J.K. Rowling gave more 'what happened after' info in an interview, too - available at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19959323/ .

Anonymous said...

I finally finished it (delay due to toddlers and time constraints). I've been wanting to read your review for ages, Lauren. I loved it. I have to say that I spent most of the book being incredulous that Snape was really a baddie (he's one of my favourite characters), so the revelation at the end was wonderful. I liked the epilogue, although I do worry about how they're going to convincingly age the actors 19 years. That's something I did throughout the book - thought about how they will film it (not too far away, now!). I think they'll race through the months and months that Harry, Hermione and Ron spend on the run. Another random thought - if Dumbledore knew all along that Harry had to die in order to kill Voldemort, then why did it take so long to reach the inevitable conclusion? Not that I didn't enjoy the journey, mind.

I've decided to re-watch all the films, if only to stop crunching on Daniel Radcliffe...